Shae's Profile

Just because something can be done doesn't mean it's a good idea to do it.

By the way (I can't seem to shut up about this great room), this color scheme begs for a theatrical retro look. Please see the movie Ghost World (it's not about ghosts) for some amazing casual decorating inspiration with these sorts of colors.

You already have gorgeous blue (or teal?) floors and a red desk, so those are your two colors. They are trendy and can definitely be worked with.

Use your money to buy things that coordinate with those two colors, to make it go the furthest.

A good way to do cheap art is to frame found objects, album covers, swatches of attractive fabric, wallpaper, etc. You can make a headboard by covering a scrap of wood with fabric.

Make your own curtains in a fabric that uses one or both colors.

Paint the end tables red.

Buy a rug that uses the colors.

Go to flea markets and antique stores and find some tiny, cheap, useful accessories to add character around the room, like wooden crates or colorful tin boxes to store things, needlepoint pillows, retro posters, etc. Look for quality materials.

This room has a great start already.

Can we PLEASE be done with silk screened birds yet?

They were cute and all, at first, but sheesh.

When I was a kid my parents used to tape them to the back of the front door.

In Martha Stewart Living this month, she covers clothes pins with festive paper. I did this and then glued the clothes pins to a couple of slats (roughly yardstick size - yardsticks would be cute too) and hung the whole thing up with ribbons. It looks lovely holding our Christmas cards.

People are addressing the clutter issue, but that's a different issue from the packrat issue. You can have a clutter problem without necessarily keeping tons of things. I'm going to assume packrat means packrat.

Here's what I do. You can't ask the person not to acquire/keep things, but you can ask them to organize them and put them out of site. Take all the doodads, throw them in a plastic bin, and say, "please go through this and find a place to put this stuff away." If it doesn't get put away, say you're tired of tripping over it and throw it out.

Repeat until stuff gets put away or you are asked for help with putting it away. If you want to help, designate a neat, put-away-in-the-closet bin for doodads and a different one for whatnots (and so on). Insist that newly acquired doodads get put in the doodad bin. If there are more doodads than the bin will handle, it's back in his court to buy a new bin or throw away some doodads.

Ugly indeed, and definitely nowhere in the arena of things intended for "design longevity."

TRICIA GUILD.

Check out some of her decorating books if you want to make these windows dramatic and fabulous.

Agreed Kalakala. I was just about to say that spice racks are never designed for serious cooks. I have 200 spices, not 24.

Currently we have a whole piece of furniture with three deep wicker drawers holding spices. It works with the fact that some of our spices are in tiny bottles (because we rebuy fresh a lot) and some are in giant bottles (because we get them at International grocery stores and go through them quickly).

It could be prettier, but we'll tackle that problem in a kitchen remodel one of these years.

Wish I could tell what they say -- maybe it's my monitor size or maybe it's my bad eyesight but I can barely read them.

As for "filler" posts -- this doesn't bother me. What bothers me are the many "best of" posts and the recaps which consist of posts we saw only days ago.